Where to place the sign

Placing the signs at the entrances of your neighborhood is a good start, if your neighborhood cover a large area you should consider placing signs on the internal streets of your neighborhood.

You cannot place the sign on a lamp-post or on a power/telephone pole without permit from the utility (assume it will be expensive/hard to get such a permit)

You cannot place your sign on a street sign without a permit from the City, country or state (depending on the type of road), assume that you will NOT get a permit.

Check the local sign ordinance for permission to place a “civic” sign on private property this is a solution that would generally be easiest to implement.

In Oakland the ordinance is called “17.104.010 – General limitations on Signs in residential and OS zones.” Civic signs are covered in section “F”

Neighborhood Watch signs

Note that in city organized programs such as “Neighborhood Watch” and “Crime Watch” can place “Neighborhood watch” signs on street signs and even utility poles. (this is done in Oakland) contact your city to become part of such a program. (click here for Oakland’s program)

Where to Buy

We bought our signs from http://worldwidesigns.com/ a place we can recommend, good price and quality, Call Bob Kocik on phone (925) 447-7446

The package we got from Worldwide Signs included (design and layout, metal sign with reflective paint, 10 foot galvanized pole and mounts to mount the sign on the pole.

NOTE: Make sure you get Bob to update the logos on the Sign to reflect your particular neighborhood. You don’t want to be displaying the wrong Logos.

When installing the signs you will need a hole digger, a bucket, a shovel, and a bag of cement.

There are 2 philosophies to hole depth when installing signs.

Make the hole so shallow that a car can hit the sign without significant damage to the car but will instead knock the sign over (1 foot deep hole)

Make the hole so deep that kids cannot topple the sign when playing acrobats, 1/3 of pole length into the ground (3-4 feet deep hole)